Donation: Are you ready to pay lakhs to buy nursery seats?

Chennai, Nov 28: At a time when President Pranab Mukherjee has lamented India's pitiable growth in the education sector, news of parents paying as much as 17 lakhs to buy nursery seats in Chennai has shocked everyone. The menace of capitation fees in schools is not restricted to Chennai alone. Schools in Bangalore, New Delhi, Kolkata and other cities of India are also infamous for charging hefty amount to admit students.

Moreover, these days to hoodwink the authorities, schools don't take cash or cheque from parents, rather they ask for "gifts". In the name of gifts, school authorities ask parents to help them improve the infrastructure of schools.

Experts say the menace of donation has grown exponentially in the recent times. "It is absurd for parents to pay lakhs of money to admit their kids in nursery schools. Parents should not get carried away by fancy infrastructure of educational institutions. If parents stop going to such schools where huge capitation fees are charged, then schools will be forced to stop asking for exponential sum of money from guardians," said an education expert.

The Union ministry for human resource development is drawing up a legislation to eliminate excess fees and capitation fees in schools. Listing the hurdles in the way of India's growth, President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday, Nov 27 lamented that India, once the cradle of civilisation, is now the poorest in terms of education, literacy and knowledge. Describing lack of literacy as the biggest challenge facing the country, Mukherjee said the largest number of illiterates in the world resided in India.

He was speaking after laying the foundation stone of an auditorium at the Sat Paul School Ludhiana. The President, in his interaction with a few students of the school, exhorted them to love the institution and respect the teachers if they wanted to make it big in life.

"We had some of the centres of excellence such as Takshila and Nalanda where people from all over the world came. We have to achieve them again," Mukherjee said.